Tag Info

Generating High Quality Ink Jet Prints
Making effective use of professional photographic ink jet printers is tricky business, especially when the statistics that are commonly used to describe these printers are vague and misleading. Learning how a ink jet printers function, how to properly interpret their capabilities, and make the most effective use of ...

The difference is in the kind of ink particle...the dye or pigment. In your case, PGI-* are pigment inks, and CLI-* are dye (ChromaLife 100 year) inks.
Dye inks use dye particles, which are soluble substances. Dye particles tend to be smaller than pigments, lay flatter on the surface of papers, and are often a bit more vibrant in the way they reflect light ...

Emprical Study: Extreme digital upscaling
For all of the theory above, thats all it currently is...theory. It is the end result of days of research on the physical characteristics of printers, the theory behind printing and ink, the concepts of DPI and PPI, etc. The real question is, how does it stack up against empirical evidence? Does it withstand the ...

Generating High Quality Ink Jet Prints: Summary
Making effective use of professional photographic ink jet printers is tricky business, especially when the statistics that are commonly used to describe these printers are vague and misleading. Learning how a ink jet printers function, how to properly interpret their capabilities, and make the most effective ...

In theory, one could make great third-party inks, but in practicality, I don't think any of them trade on permanence or color quality. They trade on cheapness.
I have a friend who ran out of brand-name ink in a pinch on a project and ended up printing some of it with refills; at first, one had to know in order to tell which was which, but after a week, ...

The two black cartridges you are referring to fall into two main categories: Pigmented and Dye-Based Ink. Your PGI-220BK is pigment based and your CLI-221BK is dye based.
Dye-Based Ink Advantages:
More vibrant, and more "color" produced
Better for text, and printing darker
Lower cost
Flow better in ink-jet applications
Dries quickly
Translucent in nature
...

Emprical Study: Does PPI Really Matter?
For all of the theory above, thats all it currently is...theory. It is the end result of days of research on the physical characteristics of printers, the theory behind printing and ink, the concepts of DPI and PPI, etc. The real question is, how does it stack up against empirical evidence? Does it withstand the test ...

I have owned a mid-level Canon iP4500 for quite a number of years. The printer cost about $180 back in the day, and has comparable modern counterparts for around the same price. When it comes to economical printing of 4x6 and 5x7, I wouldn't look farther than this level and quality of printer. Despite only using four ink colors (CMYK), the color quality and ...

The Canon iPF 8300 is one of the more advanced large-format, commercial printers available on the market today. It is indeed designed to produce the highest quality large format prints possible. The key thing about the 8300 is that it uses Lucia EX ink, which is a very new pigment ink formulation specifically designed to produce a wide gamut on print. ...

I own an HP Z3100 44" printer and the prints coming out are amazing. The Canon you listed will also print out amazing images. You just need to understand how to profile your paper/ink combination. Custom profiles will help you get the most out of your printer especially when you start to print on non-Canon/HP/Epson papers (based on the printer you end up ...

There are all kinds of arguments around the quality, the longevity, potential damage to your print head, etc. But those are kinda irrelevant for "us" here on photo-SE.
If you're printing pretty office charts and graphics, SURE. That's what most of those inks are built for... some even brag about a "more vibrant red" with their ink.
If you're printing ...

I have seen this before when printing on the wrong side of the paper.
Photo paper has a specific side that it needs to be printed on to keep the ink from spreading as only one side is usually prepared for printing. It is possible, however, to get double-sided photo paper.
If you are using matte paper, the whiter side will usually be the printing side, and ...

I think photographic prints, like digital C-prints from a Lambda printer, have a certain aesthetic appeal that many photographers who are used to photographic prints from the film age enjoy. There is something to be said about the aesthetic of a photographic print...the luster, the color, and the tonality. From that standpoint, "better" is really a matter of ...

Using the built-in printer paper profiles and allowing the printer to manage color will usually result in very saturated and unrealistic color. This is because you are printing with what is called an unmanaged color process. The way to resolve this is to use the .icc color profiles with an ICM, or Image Color Managed process.
Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and ...

You're printing on the wrong side of the paper... High quality photo printer paper is usually single sided (unless specifically labeled otherwise). The two sides will often be visibly different and the 'wrong' side will often be marked with a manufacturer's watermark. The 'right' side has a coating that is highly absorbent in order to pull the ink into the ...

If you are looking for a quality photographic ink jet paper that will work for both Canon and Epson printers, you can look at some of the companies that have been making paper far longer than either of those two: Hahnemühle , Ilford, Museo Fine Art, Moab (Legion) Paper, etc.
Can't guarantee that the price will be much cheaper (may be more expensive, ...

Continuous tone color is the key. Inkjets work by applying droplets of fixed color ink to a page and require dithering (the eye blurring groupings of dots) to form complex colors. Continuous tone color on the other hand can develop variable levels of color directly. In a photo based process like C-prints, the amount of light used to expose the paper ...

Stan's answer about the archival qualities of a [giclee | inkjet] print (and I won't get into the semantics between the two words) is right on. Inkjet-printed images can be of far greater longevity, considering color-fastness and substrate color constant. This is all a long way of saying, if you are trying to sell something that will last a lifetime, ...

You are confused because dots on an image do not correspond to dots on a printer.
The recommended 300 DPI is for images where each dot is actually a pixel and can be of any number of colors, 16 millions for a JPEG, more for other formats.
A printer requires many dots to render a single image pixel, sometimes over 100. That is because a printer has between ...

Looks a little like the setting you are printing with isn't on par with the paper being used. Different paper settings make the printer disperse the ink differently. You might want to check you have everything setup correctly.

The photograph and printer resolutions could be two quite different things. You have to find out what resolution the printer is actually using to calculate the total number of dots it prints. Even then your formula is incorrect. If the printer really emitted 300 dots per inch (DPI) in one dimension, then the number of dots in any one direction for a ...

I use the same printer and have the same problem. As an Epson fanatic I only use epson original cartridges.
The way I store the resting cartridge is to place it in one of the plastic sheaths that come with a new cartridge. The ink seems to last ok without too much drying outand so far there has been no spillage.
The only downside is that you have to put the ...

There no comparison to its exquisite fine-tuned detail in reproduction to an ordinary digital copy. There is a methodology to every step of the Giclee' process which includes calibration (CMS- color management system) and repeated massaging of minutuae areas on the file of a single painting in order to keep all features- colors and shadow detail, concise ...

The difference I suppose is that I sometimes print on paper with the color-on setting and
sometimes on paper with the grayscale-on setting and it chooses the black with color cartridges
and the one without for monochrome.
But then it begs the question: how does this interact with the paper (doc) vs glossy (photo)
choices?
I purposely choose color for most ...